Tragic hero

"Rich and Famous" is a slow-moving but character driven Triad drama from director, Taylor Wong, very much created in the style of other Wong titles such as "Triads: The Inside Story".

Kwok (Andy Lau), his brother (Alex Man) and some of his friends begin working for local Triad kingpin Li-Ah Chai (Chow Yun-Fat) to eradicate their debt problems. They gradually become more deeply involved with Chai's activities and the goings on within the Triad organization. But problems begin to arise when Tang Kat-Yung, Kwok's brother, begins plotting his own schemes away from Chai and moving towards the company of Chai's enemy, "Big Eye" (Lam Chung).

Taylor Wong creates a very familiar plot here, using all the familiar Triad clichés. Yet he manages to construct a film which is still entertaining, tense, and maintains audience interest. His detached, almost documentary style direction, passively observing the characters, is used once again. The interesting aspect of this style is that it does not generally create an opinion for the viewer but instead presents the characters in their normal states and allows the viewer to decide who is good and who is bad. Nevertheless, the slightly formulaic structure is redeemed somewhat by an excellent ensemble cast. Chow Yun-Fat, Andy Lau and Alex Man all give strong performances, while Shing Fui-On, Pauline Wong and Danny Lee provide powerful support. Danny Lee is in fact on screen far less than one would expect and only really appears in two or three scenes. However, his minor role is actually expanded by his vibrant and colourful depiction of the determined cop.

Overall, although lacking in originality and inspiration, "Rich and Famous" can still be described as an entertaining and watchable addition to the genre and deserves to be seen by all HK film fans.

While much better then the sequel, this is still by no means a great movie. Every once in a while it approaches greatness, but one thing or another keeps it from achieving it. The character development is better then usual, and Alex Man gives a very good performance as the ambitious, bumbling brother. The two action sequences are excellent, and the surprisingly low body count finale actually has some feeling and emotion in it.

Despite the negative reviews I really liked this one, I thought it did the job very nicely. Made at a time when the heroic bloodshed genre was just taking off and with Andy Lau and Chow Yun-Fat as the stars it's impossible to dislike it. The story starts off a little confusing but soon boils down into a tale of rivalry between gangsters, and the cast, which includes Danny Lee and the great Alex Man, is excellent. Plus the vibrant action sequences have a sadistic edge which appeals; the ending in particular is spectacular. A sequel, TRAGIC HERO, followed.

"Rich and Famous" is a film that is most definitely trying to emulate the classic Godfather films. The film focuses on both family, crime, loyalty, and revenge; themes Godfather explored to a greater, and better, degree. Also like the Godfather, this was a two-part series (at the time it was made, rather). However, this film comes nowhere near the level of those classic films and actually doesn't even rise above the status of average.

One reason is the acting. With the exception of Chow Yun Fat, who exudes a high level of charisma, the acting is generally over the top and unbelievable. The audience tends to find the proceedings humorous simply because the actors' inability to maintain any degree of seriousness. As a result, we find the film not truly emotionally involving or intense since we don't particularly care what occurs with these characters.

Another reason is the film's lack of focus. The narrative tries to incorporate many different story elements into the film, but this results in portions of the movie becoming underdeveloped as well as lacking any real sense of coherency. The audience sometimes becomes lost at the proceedings we are viewing, not knowing what are character's motivations are. We also get confused in which characters are whom since the narrative readily shifts focus between characters at a rapid rate.

The film's climax does contain a decent gun fight and is probably the highlight of the film. The movie tries to create an dramatic set piece with it taking place on grand steps of a church, but again since we don't care about the characters, we don't care about what happens; The scene loses it's intensity and suspense because of this. The other action set pieces are rather mundane in nature, with a feeling of it being too controlled rather than free flowing.

In general, this is a strictly average film and isn't recommended to the general film viewer... Only hard core genre enthusiasts and fans of Chow Yun Fat should consider this film for viewing.

Although Chow Yun-fat is announced as the star of the movie, Andy Lau and Alex Man plays the two biggest parts as two brothers both working for Chow Yun-Fat but ends up as enemies. The movie doesn´t give as much action as one may have hoped, but there IS some great part of shoot-out in it. To sum it all up, it is an action-drama, with tremendous actors and a suprisingly well-written story. Any fans of Chow Yun-Fat or Andy Lau should like this as they both are excellent as their characters.